


For Him I Sing

by haircutnamedarthur



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Ash misses Griffin, Bookstores, Canon Compliant, Cape Cod, Getting to Know Each Other, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, but Eiji is there to help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 07:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23467783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haircutnamedarthur/pseuds/haircutnamedarthur
Summary: When Ash returns to Cape Cod, he misses his older brother Griffin more than ever.  Surrounded by memories, it is impossible not to think of all that he has lost.  However, before they leave the Cape for good, Ash wants to take Eiji somewhere special from his childhood.
Relationships: Ash Lynx & Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx & Shorter Wong, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Okumura Eiji & Shorter Wong
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	For Him I Sing

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all, this is a piece that I wrote last year for the Ash/Eiji zine "Take Me to Where You Are." It was incredibly exciting to be part of such a wonderful project, and I'm happy to be able to share this piece with all of you!
> 
> Enjoy!

When Ash, Shorter, and Eiji turned up for breakfast, Jim, mercifully, was not in the diner. Ash wasn’t in the right mood to deal with his nasty remarks or cold attitude. Not that someone could  _ ever _ really be in the right mood for that, though. And today Ash  _ definitely  _ wasn’t up for it. Yesterday, when he crossed the threshold of his childhood home for the first time in so long, melancholy settled in his chest and stayed there.

Ash missed Griffin.

A lot.

Before returning to Cape Cod, Ash already missed him. Now he felt even worse. His heart ached for his brother, especially as he’d been in Ash’s childhood: so warm and kind and loving. On top of that, Ash knew, deep down, that he would never come back to the Cape again. With Griff gone, the Cape held nothing for him but memories. The memories with Griffin were good, and the rest, well, he didn’t like to think of those. Not if he could help it. Even the good memories only reminded him of everything he’d lost. _Once we get what we need from the house, that’s that,_ Ash told himself. _I won’t come here again._ _Not ever._

Ash’s resolution sent a pang through his chest. As much as he didn’t  _ want  _ to return, the finality of it hurt. While there were nice things about the Cape, they seemed distant enough to be part of someone else’s life instead of his own. Absent minded, Ash picked at his sandwich. Shorter and Eiji chattered about making it to LA and if there were sharks in the water and if there  _ were  _ sharks, how big were they?

“There  _ are _ sharks,” Ash said, and Eiji and Shorter looked startled that he’d joined in. Pretending not to notice, he took a bite. “Tons of them off the Outer Cape beaches like Nauset and Race Point.”

“Oh damn!” Shorter clapped his hands. “Do you think we can  _ see  _ one?”

“Yeah sure. Go take a dip, Shorter,” Ash deadpanned.

“Rude, bro!” Shorter groaned, pretending to be offended.

Eiji threw his head back and laughed. Watching him, Ash bit his lower lip. He thought back to earlier that morning, shooting at the bottles on the fence with Eiji: standing behind him, guiding his hand, adjusting his posture. The image of Eiji with the gun was incongruous. It reminded Ash of seeing pictures of Griff with one while he was overseas. That much gentleness didn’t jibe with that kind of violence. Then again, Eiji  _ had  _ stolen a car, so maybe it was a little different.

“Do you guys want to go somewhere with me?” Ash asked, seized by a sudden impulse. “There’s somewhere I’d like to visit before we leave.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I was gonna crash on your couch for a little while. My back is all kinds of screwed up from riding in that stupid truck. I wanna try and sleep it off,” Shorter said, punctuating his sentence with a yawn. Ash shrugged.

“I’ll come,” Eiji enthused, leaning towards Ash as he spoke.

“Good,” Ash said. “Finish eating, then. We should go sooner rather than later.”

~*~

As he walked along the shoulder of the familiar road, Ash was almost surprised he didn’t mind having Eiji along. After extending the invitation, he’d half regretted it, wondering if it wasn’t the kind of thing that would have been better without company. Instead, Eiji walked beside him, hurrying to keep pace with Ash’s long strides. Eiji’s presence felt calm and peaceful as he admired the tree lined road and small houses. Even as the Cape got more and more developed and busy over the years, this area had stayed almost the same. Cars seldom passed them.

“I used to walk along here with Griff all the time as a kid. Or ride bikes,” Ash said, surprising himself again by speaking.

“Really?” Eiji asked, and Ash couldn’t miss the guilt pooling in Eiji’s big, brown eyes. That, in turn, made Ash feel guilty, too, but he pushed the emotion to the side. It was too much to think about. Not if he didn’t want to completely break down over it. Although he didn’t blame Eiji, every time he thought of what happened to Griffin it sent his heart and stomach twisting.  _ Don’t think about it _ , Ash scolded himself.  _ Keep it together and don’t think about it. _

“Yeah. There’s this bookstore, that’s where we’re going by the way, and he’d take me there all the time. We’d go every Sunday afternoon. Sometimes more often,” Ash explained, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep himself from fidgeting.

“That must have been fun,” Eiji smiled at him, encouraging Ash to keep going. 

“It was. Griff was a big reader. He’d read novels and poems and biographies and just about anything else he could lay hands on. Poems were his favorite, though. Especially Walt Whitman. He was a sucker for  _ Leaves of Grass. _ Anyway, he wanted me to love reading as much as he did so we were always going here or to the library together,” Ash said. “And I mean, it worked. I’m more into novels than poems, though.”

“He sounds like a great brother,” Eiji said, tone gentle, when Ash paused for a beat. “I do not know  _ Leaves of Grass. _ ”

“I’ll show you sometime. It’s nice,” Ash replied. “And he really was the best brother I ever could have asked for, especially since he was basically doing double duty as a parent, too. It couldn’t have been easy for him.”

“I am sure he knew it was worth it,” Eiji said and Ash only offered him a small smile, just barely quirking the corners of his mouth up, in return. They continued in silence, but it felt companionable not tense and Ash thanked himself for asking Eiji along after all. Even though he didn’t know him too well, having Eiji there felt comforting. Less lonely. 

Making the turn onto Route 6A, a busier street than the back road they started on, Ash felt a flutter of anticipation.  _ We’re getting really close now _ . Not long afterwards, the bookstore came into sight.

“Here we are. Welcome to Parnassus,” Ash said as they reached the store. He made a sweeping gesture towards a grey building on an unpaved lot. It had peeling paint and a cheerful yellow sign in the window that announced there were books for sale inside. Through the wide front windows, beyond the yellow sign, Ash could see the stacks and stacks of books that filled the shop to bursting. The building looked worn, but in a pleasant, familiar way rather than a tired one. Even though years had passed since Ash last laid eyes on it, everything looked just as he remembered it.

“Pahr-naas-uhs,” Eiji tried the word out, enunciating each syllable.

“It’s named after a mountain in Greece,” Ash explained, motioning for Eiji to follow him up the wooden steps and inside. “Parnassus is important in Greek mythology. Apollo is associated with it and the Muses were said to live there. It’s a fitting name for a bookstore.”

“How cool!” Eiji grinned and stepped into the shop behind Ash.

As soon as Ash came inside, he breathed in the scent of old books and worn leather and aging paper. A warm glow spread throughout his chest. It was like stepping back in time. Closing his eyes for a moment, he took a deep breath, and opened them again. Ash watched as dust motes swirled in the light coming through the big front windows and settled on the shelves. There were piles of books from floor to ceiling that looked to be on the verge of tipping and scattering across the well-trodden wooden floorboards. Ash inhaled again, absorbing the feeling of wellbeing that came from being back in the shop.

“It is like something out of a movie,” Eiji gushed, running his fingers along the spines of the books on the nearest shelf. Ash couldn’t help feel pleased that Eiji appreciated Parnassus as much as he’d hoped he would. It was more than just a bookshop to Ash and it felt vitally important for some reason that Eiji like it.

The shop attendant, who had once reminded Ash of a slightly-skinnier-than-would-be-conventional Santa Claus, smiled at them and Ash thought he looked older. His hair and beard were whiter and the lines in his face deeper. He leaned more heavily on his cane than Ash remembered. Ash reckoned that if he’d been there all along, the change in the man wouldn’t have been as noticeable. Time would have ambled along and taken its course day by day, instead of crashing forward across the years like Ash did when he stepped back into Parnassus.

Rather than risk conversation with the shopkeeper, Ash pulled Eiji deeper into the store. As they drifted through the shelves, Ash imagined a world where Griffin had never been shipped off to war, never come home irreparably damaged, and, Ash thought with a twinge, never been killed. Years of Sunday afternoon visits to Parnassus that never happened marched through the attics of Ash’s mind. The possibilities of what life could have been made Ash’s heart feel even heavier as he considered all those Sundays.

“Hey, let’s go outside,” Ash said, nudging Eiji towards the door. “Griff and I usually shopped out there anyway.”

The side of the building featured a covered porch that protected rows upon rows of shelves, all jammed with used paperbacks and cheap books. There was even a money box on the railing so people could buy the books outside even when the shop was closed.

“This is nice.” Eiji studied the wall of books before him.

“For sure, and these books don’t cost nearly as much as the ones inside. Griff and I weren’t exactly rolling in dough so we’d usually choose books from here,” Ash said, pulling a volume down off the shelf to leaf through it before putting it back. “I didn’t mind, though. Mostly I just liked coming here with him.” He browsed the books, wondering if some of the less popular selections had been there since he was a kid. It seemed likely. Who the hell would buy  _ The Great Pantyhose Crafts Book  _ anyway?

“Thank you for taking me with you, Ash,” Eiji said, looking at him with wide, earnest eyes. “I feel like I know you better now.”

“No, thank you for coming with me,” Ash said, sidling closer to Eiji and bumping shoulders with him. “I’m glad I could show you. It was nice to come back.”  _ And,  _ Ash thought,  _ after always being here with Griffin, thank God I didn’t have to come alone. _

Eiji smiled at Ash and jostled his shoulder back, a gesture that, despite how casual it was, sent Ash’s heart skittering. Then, Eiji’s eyes lit up. 

“Oh, I know! We can buy books for the trip!” Eiji enthused. “My treat.”

“Hey, I can buy my own books, Eiji,” Ash laughed.

“I know. But I want to,” Eiji giggled. “I  _ am  _ older, after all.”

“You got me there,” Ash said, rolling his eyes with feigned exasperation. “Let’s pick something out, then.”

As he and Eiji rifled through the books, Ash felt lighter than he had in a long while.

“Look!” Eiji gasped. “Aren’t these the poems Griffin liked?” Ash turned to see him holding a battered copy of  _ Leaves of Grass. _ He took the book from Eiji and let it fall open to a poem at random.

“For him I sing,” a shiver ran through Ash as he read the poem aloud. “I raise the present on the past, as some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past...” He trailed off, hoping Eiji wouldn’t notice how his voice grew thick.

“It is beautiful,” Eiji whispered. “We will get this one, right?”

“Of course,” Ash said, cracking a smile even though his eyes felt watery. Eiji grinned back.

_ Thank you, Griff. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3
> 
> "Take Me to Where You Are" was the first zine I have ever participated in, and I have many fond memories of working on it with everyone! I made some wonderful friends in the process and I am so proud of how the zine turned out thanks to everyone's hard work! This fic is special to me for that reason alone. I hope that you all enjoyed reading it!
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Comments always make my day and are super appreciated! If you want to say "hi" on Twitter, you can find me at @pennylanewrites (https://twitter.com/pennylanewrites?lang=en)
> 
> As a side note, this bookstore is a real place and it's one of my favorite places in the whole entire world! If you ever find yourself on Cape Cod, you should go check it out :) You won't regret it; it's a really amazing place and a book lover's dream!


End file.
